Is Empire State Realty OP, L.P. (ESBA) a good stock to buy?
Our tested checks disagree with each other, so the answer depends on something further down the page rather than on any one measure.
What each rating means, in numbers
Business quality — Strong. Passes 6 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
How wild is the price? — Wild. The share price swings about 54% in a typical year, which puts it in the above average. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 3.7 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.9% to 5.7%.
What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100
Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.
The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.
Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.
Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.
▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend, DCF applicability). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about ESBA — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read ESBA (REIT)
REITs pay out most of their cash, so judge them on cash distributions and the value of their property — not on earnings or a standard DCF.
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REIT lens (P/AFFO + dividend yield) ↓
Price-to-AFFO and the dividend yield are the real cheap/expensive gauges for real estate.
Is Empire State Realty OP, L.P. (ESBA) overvalued?
Macro: Neutral / mid-cycleYes, by our measure: the price is about 77% above what we think the business is worth.
ESBA trades at $4.55 vs an estimated intrinsic value of $2.57 — a +77.3% premium to model IV.
Not investment advice. The model can be wrong. Verify the assumptions in the sections below and consider consulting a licensed advisor for significant decisions.
What return would ESBA pay as a bond?
Not measurable here. Valued on the dividend stream: the dividend itself is this security's coupon, and its yield is shown in the dividend lens. See the cross-company ranking →
What this rating means
What the rating says — Methods disagree. Methods disagree: the price is ABOVE 1 of 2 method ranges while inside the rest — assumption-sensitive, not clearly fair.
What it does not say — Not a forecast. This shows where today's price sits against several different ways of valuing the business. Where the methods disagree, the spread itself is the useful part - it tells you how much the answer depends on which one you trust.
Football field: where does the price sit?
Both bars below come from our own cash-flow model — one tries a range of growth rates, one shows our three scenarios. A third bar comparing ESBA with similar companies appears only when there are enough close peers to trust it, and there aren't here. So this shows how much the answer depends on growth, not a set of independent checks.
Industry multiples sourced from: broad market average (sector unknown). See the Peer Basket section below for the peer comparison and its limited-comparables caveat.
How does ESBA stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to ESBA and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If ESBA is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCCD | Sachem Capital Corp. | REITs | $1.2B | — | — | — | 0.8% |
| SCCG | Sachem Capital Corp. | REITs | $1.2B | — | — | — | 0.8% |
| SCCE | Sachem Capital Corp. | REITs | $1.2B | — | — | — | 0.8% |
| SCCF | Sachem Capital Corp. | REITs | $1.2B | — | — | — | 0.8% |
| UMH | UMH PROPERTIES, INC. | REITs | $1.3B | 36.5x | — | — | 5.6% |
| SVC | Service Properties Trust | REITs | $1.2B | 4.7x | — | — | 2.3% |
| ORC | Orchid Island Capital, Inc. | REITs | $1.4B | — | — | — | 20.6% |
| SAFE | Safehold Inc. | REITs | $1.1B | 14.7x | — | 56.1x | 4.7% |
Real-estate-specific metrics
REITs are valued on AFFO (Adjusted Funds from Operations) and dividend yield, not DCF. Reported depreciation isn't a real cash cost for real estate — properties typically hold or appreciate. The metrics below are the industry-standard yardsticks.
Note: Depreciation & Amortization line not available — using FCF/share as AFFO proxy. Directionally correct but understates true AFFO (true AFFO adds back D&A and subtracts only maintenance CapEx; FCF subtracts all CapEx).
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Strong. Passes 6 of the 7 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
REITs deliberately carry high leverage backed by long-life real estate and pay out 90%+ of taxable income — both inputs that Altman Z flags as distress. See the REIT Valuation Lens above for P/AFFO, dividend yield and payout ratio.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
Piotroski F's checks (operating cash flow, gross-margin trend, current ratio, asset turnover) assume an industrial cost structure, so they misread asset-heavy or financial businesses like this one — a healthy REIT, utility, pipeline, BDC/fund or holding company can score low for reasons that aren't weakness. See the sector lens above for the metrics that actually matter.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 9.3%, the figure our model used for ESBA. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: the calculator opens at our published value of $2.57 — it is initialised to the same scenario-weighted result, so the two match exactly on load. The moment you move a slider, the value below becomes a single-path what-if at your assumptions (not the three-scenario weighting), which is why it can differ from the headline once you've touched it.
9.3% — beta-based (CAPM), from this stock's BetaBeta — How much the stock moves when the overall market moves. 1.0 = moves with the market; 1.5 = moves 50% more than the market.
Why it matters: Higher beta = more volatile = should demand higher discount rate. Low beta stocks (utilities, consumer staples) move less.
Reference: Most stocks 0.5–1.5 · Defensives ~0.3 · High-vol tech ~1.5–2.0
Full explanation → of 0.87. The safe Treasury rate plus a premium scaled by how much more (or less) volatile the stock is than the market.
10.0% — sector/quality tier. A simpler hurdle set by industry and business durability: lower for stable, wide-moat companies; higher for speculative or micro-caps.
The headline value and this calculator start at 9.3% — the beta-based rate. Drag the slider to the other rate to see the full range.
ESBA is valued with a dividend-discount model. The calculator above starts from that published value and shows how it moves with the discount rate and long-run growth; it does not rebuild the model year by year. The sector lens shows the measures that matter most for this kind of business.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
ESBA is deeply overvalued, trading at a premium of +77.3% to the model's intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →. The market appears to be paying for the company's consistent profitability and positive operating cash flow, despite a low franchise/durability score of 2/5. The number one quantifiable risk is the significant divergence between the market price and the model's valuation of $2.5668.
As of 4 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation → of $2.5668.
- Changes in occupancy rates for key properties
- Trends in rental income per square foot
- Updates to dividend policy or payout rates
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Free cash flow fell to $223.9M.
- Net income fell -9% to $73.0M.
Nothing was clearly improving year-over-year.
Roughly flat: Revenue was flat +0% to $766.8M.
Management & Leadership
Anthony E. Malkin serves as the Chairman, President, and CEO of Empire State Realty Trust, the general partner of Empire State Realty OP, L.P. He has led the company since its IPO in 2013, overseeing its portfolio of iconic New York City properties. Limited executive data available beyond this.
What They Make
Empire State Realty OP, L.P. owns, manages, operates, acquires, and repositions office and retail properties, primarily in Manhattan and the greater New York metropolitan area. Their customers are businesses and retailers seeking prime commercial real estate.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
The market prices ESBA at a premium of +77.3% likely due to its consistent financial health signals, such as positive net income in 4/5 years and positive operating cash flow in 5/5 years. Investors may be valuing the stability and income generation from its real estate portfolio, despite the model's lower valuation and a franchise/durability score of 2/5.
Three Scenarios, Weighted
| Scenario | IV | Upside from today's price | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $2.20 | -51.6% | 40% |
| Base | $2.61 | -42.6% | 35% |
| Optimistic | $3.09 | -32.1% | 25% |
| Weighted | $2.57 | -43.6% | 100% |
Reading the last column: it is the move from today's price to each value (IV ÷ price − 1). The headline "premium/discount to model IV" measures the same gap from the value's side (price ÷ IV − 1), so the two percentages differ in size and sign by construction — e.g. a price 8% above value is a value 7.4% below price.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company pays a dividend derived from its cash flow statement, estimated at $0.14/yr, funding distributions to unitholders.
Dividend Discount Medium
REIT (REITs): dividend discount model - GAAP earnings distort REIT valuations.
Show advanced inputs
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated dividend-discount model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project net interest income and fee-income lines independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been growing at 5.3%/yr over 4 years, from $624M to $767M.
Geography & Markets
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)52.0NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BearishLine below signalThe fast trend is below the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently downward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (3 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (3)
- Dividend derived from cash-flow statement ($0.14/yr; SEC has no per-share dividend feed).
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Dividend data sparse; DDM using estimated yield. Confidence reduced.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Empire State Realty OP, L.P.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 766.8M | 73.0M | $0.25 |
| 2024 | 766.8M | 80.4M | $0.28 |
| 2023 | 738.2M | 84.4M | $0.30 |
| 2022 | 725.7M | 63.2M | $0.22 |
| 2021 | 624.1M | -13.0M | $-0.06 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
Capital expenditure isn't tagged in this filer's machine-readable data (the CapEx column shows "—"). The free-cash-flow column is therefore operating cash flow less stock-based compensation only — an upper bound on true owner earnings, not the real figure. Companies that report capex under a custom label (some large IFRS filers do) look better here than they are.
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 249.1M | — | 25.2M | 223.9M |
| 2024 | 260.9M | — | 21.7M | 239.2M |
| 2023 | 232.5M | 169.2M | 20.0M | 43.3M |
| 2022 | 211.2M | 86.0M | 21.0M | 104.2M |
| 2021 | 212.5M | 398.4M | 20.3M | -206.1M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 249.1M − — − 25.2M (SBC & adj.) = 223.9M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a TTM dividend, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 4.5B |
| Total Liabilities | 2.6B |
| Equity | — |
Similar companies worth a look
Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.
The questions people ask about ESBA
Is Empire State Realty OP, L.P. (ESBA) a good stock to buy?
Empire State Realty OP, L.P. (ESBA) looks expensive against its own cash flows: the price is about 77% above our $2.57 estimate. Whether it is a good buy depends on whether the company can grow faster than that price assumes, on its financial health, and on what insiders are doing. All three are on this page. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Empire State Realty OP, L.P. (ESBA) overvalued?
Yes, by our measure. Empire State Realty OP, L.P. (ESBA) trades at $4.55, about 77% above our estimate of $2.57 for what the business is worth. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
What is ESBA's intrinsic value?
Our model estimates ESBA is worth about $2.57 per share, built from the cash the business is expected to generate, taken from its SEC filings. The market price is $4.55.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Empire State Realty OP, L.P.'s own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.